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Finally…

This post should really have come a lot sooner, but dark forces (read: the mail service) conspired against me at every turn. Somehow, the mailman managed to lose both separately after failing to deliver them to my doorstep, since I was out! It took considerable patience, numerous trips to the depot, several complaints and a ridiculously inflated customs tax (some fool worked out the tax thinking the price of the item was in Hong Kong Dollars, not Japanese yen, despite the box saying so. Thus, the exchange rate went from 211 to 13… Big difference!) before getting these 2 so I haven’t been able to post this until now! Shuraki Box 1 and 3!! Mishiro Akatsuki & Char Rhousseman!!

Mishiro only came in this week so this review will cover Char as she has been waiting almost 2 weeks for a chance to shine!

The Shuraki series of figures are of note because they are some of the few figures which made me take notice even though they are PVC products! It’s almost a shame, really.

The first 3 figures announced in the series all impressed me, but out of them all, I have to say that I desired Char the most, primarily because she’s voiced by Yukari Tamura!!! Having said that, I thought she was more suited to voice Riu Meifeng, but that could just be my Ranpha Framboise (galaxy angel) love kicking in…

I must admit that there’s alot to like about this figure. Disregarding the small artbook and Drama CD, the design is excellent, the pose is dynamic without being overly complicated and build quality is pretty decent. Also, being an original design, the makers had a little more leeway in terms of how accurate to the original illustrations they wanted to be, not that they needed it, as Char looks just like her artwork!

I particularly like the hair design on Char. It’s not something any sculptor can pull off and goodsmile has done a good job in recreating it!

Then, of course, there’s the cast off feature…

We’ll continue with the Battle damage version:

This months Dengeki hobby Magazine had a really good custom mod of Char with had slight cut marks over Char’s body and damage over her fully clothed form. It looked really impressive and I would have mimicked the idea, had it not been for the rarity of the figure. (would you mod a figure blindly if it was so hard to get a hold of in the first place?)

If you look closely, the pics above highlight the main faults with Char. Firstly, there are seam lines, lots of them. I tried to remove them but it proved too dangerous as they were difficult to sand or shave off with a blade and there was the possibility that even more permanent scarring could occur so in the end, I left it. It’s not a huge deal, but since a lot of preparation time on resin kits is spent removing the seams, I noticed it alot more.

The second issue was the paint job. There were several errors in painting with paint overrunning and being simply flaky in places. I expected better from a mass produced kit, but I sometimes have similar problems with my own kits so I won’t hold it against them. It also gives an impression that the mass produced figures also had a “human tough” in it’s build process.

And now, on with the full cast off!!

I think other people have commented on it as well, but I found the choice of colour panties to be rather strange. Why turquoise?

Thought I’d take a pic without the cravat which is usually on her neck. The neck is LONG!!

The cast off itself was pretty simple. The arms and head can be removed (the arms detach at the join between the gauntlet and the bare skin) with the 2 coats being moulded in 1 piece. They’re pretty stiff as you’d expect, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hold their shape, esp the large complete coat. The white “overbra” was a separate part which simply tucked in the coat.

Which takes us to the one annoying thing about this figure, despite adding a layer of varnish onto the clothes to try and stop it, paint still rubs off onto the main body!!! A little alcohol (paint thinner) gets rid of it but seeing large, often black marks on the body is never pleasant!

And it has been noted before, like in Danny Choos review but Chars *ahem* “eyes” are really big!!!

Speaking of eyes, If you look closely at the closeup shots of Chars face, you’ll notice that her eyes lack pupils!! Not a fault, per se, but it makes it really hard to figure out just where she’s looking out towards… It’s not in line with her rapier, but at an angle. Yet if you look at multiple angles you could think that she’s looking at you no matter which position you look from. The eyes follow you around!!!!

Overall, despite the enormous difficulty in getting Char, I like her, quite a bit. She won’t oust my resin kits from the top tier but she’s recommended for those who are prefer to collect premade figures.

She really is quite a beauty.

I’ll try and update the post with more pics later on, when I get back from my exile. I’m not a fan of overloading posts with pictures, but it’s pretty boring seeing the same pose and angle just with varying states of undress, right?

I was REALLY lucky with Char. I missed the first round of preorders but a few days before she was supposed to be shipped, HLJ put her up as available again. I guess it was because they received more than they thought or had a lot of cancellations. Either way, Managed to snag her then.

I’ve added you to the community links on the left. Nice blog as well. and regularly updated too!